The Fog Demystified
Exclusive: We speak to the remake’s director, Rupert Wainwright
01 March 2005
Despite the fact that the recent remakes of Dawn of the Dead, Assault on Precinct 13, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre all turned out pretty well, there’s nothing that fans like more than griping about potential remakes of their favourite horror movies. The Amityville Horror rejig is almost upon us, Sam Raimi is planning an Evil Dead revamp, but the film incurring the highest levels of geek rage is the retooling of John Carpenter’s The Fog. But director Rupert Wainwright, who’s currently calling the shots on that flick in Vancouver, is adamant that there’s no need to worry.
“We’re all fans of the original movie, but it’s 25 years old and there are plenty of reasons to remake it,” said Wainwright, talking exclusively to Empire from the movie’s dry ice-encrusted set. In fact, he’s not alone: Carpenter and original producer/co-screenwriter Debra Hill have not only given the blessing to the Sony/Revolution Studios project, but are serving as producers.
“A little went a long way back then,” Wainwright adds, referring to the original’s inexpensive but effective special effects, “but nowadays the technology has got to the point where you can really do a lot with the fog itself.”
Considered a lesser Carpenter effort, but nonetheless an impressive exercise in mood and atmospherics, The Fog is set in a small coastal California town whose founding fathers lured a ship to its doom in order to steal the gold on board. Exactly a century on (apparently ghosts have calendars), the arrival of a thick yellow fog signals the return of the ancient mariners, seeking revenge from beyond their watery graves.
Fanboys have been concerned by the new version’s cast, which includes such TV staples as Smallville’s Tom Welling and Maggie Grace from Lost, while the 1980 original featured the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Hal Holbrook and Janet Leigh. Yet Wainwright insists The Fog will not be your typical teen slasher, nor is it likely to follow the MTV-style editing of his earlier horror film, Stigmata. “The bar has been raised so high recently, not just in the recent run of studio remakes, but in movies like 28 Days Later,” he says. “We’re being really hard on ourselves, so the end product will provide exactly what the audience wants, not just in terms of shocks and scares and special effects, but in terms of good writing and good performances.”
The latter, he feels, is key to the effectiveness of a horror film. “If you don’t have nuanced, believable characters you can actually care about, why would you give a shit what happens to them?"
Scripting the update is Cooper Layne, who co-wrote The Core and penned several drafts of Wainwright’s unproduced Outer Limits feature. Details of the new Fog’s plot, however, remain shrouded in mystery (Ha! See what we did there? Mystery? It’s like ‘mistery’ but with one letter removed! Mist? Fog? Jeez… tough crowd). “It’s true to the spirit of the original, but it’s pretty different. We’ve got some pretty major surprises,” he adds, “and I don’t think horror fans are going to be disappointed.”
We’ll find out soon enough. As of yesterday, The Fog has a UK release date of January 6, 2006.
The Fog remake update
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